


The Heart of the Wolf

by DiscontentedWinter



Series: The Light in the Woods [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Arranged Marriage, M/M, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:15:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25781971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscontentedWinter/pseuds/DiscontentedWinter
Summary: Etienne Argent is rescued by a strange young man in the woods.The wolf finds his home.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: The Light in the Woods [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1041566
Comments: 465
Kudos: 1117





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bunnywest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunnywest/gifts), [Twisted_Mind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twisted_Mind/gifts).



> This is a continuation of the Light in the Woods series. Nothing will make sense if you haven't read that first.  
> There's also a chance this won't make sense anyway.

Etienne jerks awake, the scream in his mouth smothered by a warm palm.

“Hush,” the young man says. His eyes are bright in the moonlight. “You’re safe. You’re safe.”

He shifts back, the silver light gleaming on the naked planes of his torso, and lifts his hand from Etienne’s mouth.

Everything comes back in a rush.

The ambush, the blood, Etienne’s escape while his men fought the attackers—the memory of his cowardice wells up like a bitter lump in his throat—and finally his spectacular crash onto the ground when his panicked horse threw him somewhere in the woods. He’d lost his horse, twisted his ankle, walked blindly into an entire forest’s worth of trees, and then—

Etienne blinks at his saviour.

And then a naked man appeared out of nowhere, told him he was in Laindéir, promised not to eat him, and said that he’d take him home.

Etienne blinks again.

It’s entirely possible that he hit his head harder than he thought when his horse threw him.

“Wh-what’s going on?”

“We walked,” the young man says. He tilts his head, and the gesture seems almost animalistic. Certainly not entirely human. “Do you remember?”

All Etienne remembers right now is every terrifying story his brother Alexandre has told him about the people of Laindéir, and how they aren’t really people at all, and how they lure unwary victims into their territory and then peel their skin off and eat it. How they make blood sacrifices to old gods, and nail their victims’ corpses to the hungry trees.

He shakes his head and swallows, and wonders if he’s under some kind of bewitchment already.

“Your ankle hurt,” the young man says. “So we stopped to rest, and you fell asleep. You had a nightmare, I think.”

“What’s your name?” Etienne asks.

The young man pauses for a moment, and tilts his head again as though he’s listening to something Etienne can’t hear above the sound of the wind rustling in the leaves. When his smiles, his teeth shine in the moonlight. “Gealai.”

Etienne wrinkles his nose. “ _Galley_?”

“Close enough,” the young man says.

“Close enough,” Etienne echoes, and finds himself leaning towards Galley. He’s never seen anyone as beautiful before. Galley has dark hair, a perfect jawline, a freckle on his right cheek that draws Etienne’s gaze, and eyes that Etienne thinks might be brilliant green in the daytime, but shine silver under the light of the moon. He is _perfect_. In his mind, Etienne can hear a thousand childhood songs about demon lovers— _light down, light down, you are come to the place where you will die_ —but for the first time he understands what it means to be so completely in another’s thrall that he would walk quietly to his own death over it.

Galley raises his eyebrows, and says something in Laindéiran that makes no sense. Etienne hears it in the place in his mind that he usually reserves for music. And then Galley’s fingers are brushing his cheek, but instead of pulling Etienne in to kiss him—to _devour_ him, maybe—he only smiles slightly and draws back.

Etienne’s face burns.

“Are you hungry?” Galley asks him.

“No,” Etienne whispers, but his stomach rumbles loudly, calling him a liar.

Galley’s smile broadens.

Etienne squints, and screws his courage. “You don’t have any food, do you? I mean, you’re naked. It’s not like you’re hiding honeycakes in your pockets. You don’t have pockets. So if you’ve got honeycakes on you anywhere, frankly the number of places you could be hiding them are very limited, and I don’t want to put them anywhere near my mouth.”

Galley laughs. “I don’t have any honeycakes shoved up my ass.”

Etienne’s face burns again. “I mean, I hoped that was the case.” 

“Make a fire, _oir_ ,” Galley says, “and I will find us something to cook on it.”

Etienne isn’t sure if he should turn away when Galley stands up or not, because he’s been raised to know what manners are, but also… he looks up as Galley turns, and his gaze falls on the world’s most perfect ass, bathed in moonlight. Etienne’s jaw drops, and he scrambles to grab a couple of twigs just so that it looks like he’s doing something when Galley flashes a grin over his shoulder at him.

By the way Galley’s grin grows as Etienne wordlessly holds his twigs up, he doesn’t think Galley is fooled for a second.

Galley disappears into the darkness, and Etienne shivers, and tries not to listen to the whispering of the trees around him. He’s heard a thousand dark stories about Laindéir and its people, but Galley doesn’t scare him. Maybe he should be scared though, and the only reason he’s not is because he’s been bewitched. He doesn’t feel as though he’s been bewitched, but how would he know? Wouldn’t the entire point of bewitchment be _not_ knowing?

He drags one of his twigs through the dirt, and belatedly remembers he’s supposed to be lighting a fire. 

His ankle and foot are still throbbing, swelling uncomfortably in the tight confines of his boot, so Etienne reaches out and drags a few sticks closer before reluctantly getting to his knees and shuffling across the little clearing in search of more wood. The stuff he finds seems too damp, and he’s reluctant to crawl any deeper toward the dark, towering trees. They seem to loom up all around him, swallowing up the small patch of starlit sky that Etienne can see. The wind tickles his hair, and he shivers and pulls his cloak more firmly around himself. 

He gives up the hunt for firewood quickly, and instead finds himself sitting there listening to every little noise and hoping it’s Galley, and not some monstrous creature that lives in darkness of this strange, unsettling land. Laindéir, Beacon, whatever this territory is called. It has a hundred names, probably, and a thousand horror stories to go with each. 

It may only be minutes before Galley returns, but it feels like hours. A rush of relief washes over Etienne when the leaves rustle and Galley reappears, with a pheasant tucked into the crook of his arm.

“No fire yet, _oir_?” he asks. He sets the pheasant down in the leaf litter, and begins to collect the firewood that Etienne didn’t.

The moonlight shines on the feathers of the bird. It looks asleep, not dead. Its neck isn’t floppy where Galley has snapped it, and there’s no sign of any blood. Etienne pokes the bird, half expecting it to wake up, but of course it’s dead. It would hardly be hanging around waiting to get eaten if it was still alive.

“You’ve called me that twice,” Etienne says. “What does it mean?”

Galley looks up from where he’s assembling the firewood. “Golden. For your hair.”

Etienne flushes. “I do have a name though. I’m a prince. I have lots of names.”

“Let’s hear them, then,” Galley says, settling on his knees to try to coax an ember from some dry twigs.

“Etienne Christophe Sebastian Theodore Argent,” Etienne recites.

“That is a lot of names,” Galley agrees.

“How many do you have?” Etienne asks.

Galley tilts his head. “Just one at a time.”

A memory stirs: Laindéirans and their strange habit of picking up and discarding names as though they go out of season like fashions, or stale like bread.

“What does your name mean?”

“Moonlight,” Galley says.

It suits him.

“What about yours?” Galley asks.

“Well, I’m named for people,” Etienne says, “though I think my mother just liked the sound of Etienne. The Christophe is for my grandfather, the Sebastian is for _his_ grandfather, and Theodore was my father’s name. He died before I was born. Fell through some ice, and couldn’t be saved.” He doesn’t mention that he’s always had the impression that nobody tried very hard. Theo Raeken was a duke’s son who aspired to be more than the consort of the future queen, and didn’t agree that the line of succession should be matrilineal. “My grandfather was the king at the time, but when my mother turned twenty-five, she took the crown, because she’s a woman, and we have always had queens before kings. Do you have queens or kings here?”

“Neither,” Galley says, and then shrugs. “Maybe you would call the _ceanurra_ a king. The Old Ones made him the law maker.”

Etienne shivers, and imagines some ghastly figure with antlers, handing out bloody death sentences to innocent golden-haired princes who accidentally trespass into his creepy territory.

“Are you cold?” Galley asks.

“A little,” Etienne lies, because he would rather Galley think that than know that he’s a coward. “But you don’t have any clothes to share with me.”

Galley huffs out a quiet laugh, and turns his attention to the fire again. A moment later there’s a spark, and then an ember, and Etienne watches in amazement as Galley effortlessly coaxes it into a small flame. It only takes a few minutes for the fire to begin to burn properly, and Etienne shuffles forward, wincing at the pain in his ankle.

Galley fetches the pheasant, and plucks it. Etienne wrinkles his nose at the sound of it: the rasp of the feathers being tugged out of dead flesh. It wouldn’t bother him usually, but tonight he’s unsettled and on edge. His eyes sting from more than the smoke of the fire.

“Wait,” he says, when he sees Galley tighten his grip on one of the bird’s legs. He’s afraid he’s going to tear it apart like he’s some kind of wild animal, and he’s not sure he can watch that tonight. He fumbles in his belt for his knife—a blade his grandfather gave him when he turned thirteen. He hands it over to Galley. “Here.”

Galley inspects the blade, eyebrows raised. “Very nice.”

He turns away from Etienne slightly to cut the pheasant apart.

“I’m not usually squeamish,” Etienne feels the need to tell him. “I had men with me. I think… I think at least some of them are dead.”

“I’m sorry that happened,” Galley says. “To them, and to you.”

“I should have stayed to help them fight.” Etienne hunches over.

“Then they would be dead, and so would you,” Galley points out. “And then they would have died for nothing.”

Etienne swallows, his throat aching, and nods. “I know that,” he says. “I know it. But it’s not fair.”

He expects the same sort of answer he always gets when he says a thing isn’t fair: a reminder—sometimes sympathetic and sometimes sneering, depending on who says it—that the world isn’t fair.

Galley’s gaze holds his in the moonlight, and he dips his chin in a nod.

“I know,” he says, his eyes wide. “I’m sorry.”

Etienne feels a hot tear slide down his cheek. He reaches up to wipe it away, angry at himself for letting it fall, but Galley moves faster. His fingertips brush against Etienne’s cheek, featherlight, and Etienne holds his breath as he carefully brushes the moisture away.

*****

Gealai hasn’t worn his human skin in weeks, or twisted his tongue in speech. But now here he is, sitting in the woods with the boy who smells like home, and they are talking and eating and the wolf could watch him, could listen to him, until the end of the world. He is a pretty boy, but the wolf knows better than to tell him that; pretty, but he bristles with pride, and the wolf thinks he might not _like_ to be called pretty. Humans are like that sometimes, especially humans with as many names at this one.

The wolf also has many names.

_Faolán._

_Moonflower._

_Conmac._

_Chaffinch._

_Ember._

_The Gift of the Trees._

_Gealai_.

He doesn’t use them all at once though, like this little prince. He sheds them like his winter coat in summer, like drifts of hair that float away on the breeze, or get caught up in the corners of the keep and make Dad grumble that his son _sheds_. It makes Papa laugh and the wolf chuff, because they both know Dad doesn’t mean it.

Gealai smiles when he thinks of them, and feels a faint pang of homesickness, not for their love, which the wind whispers to him even miles and miles away in the woods of Laindéir, but for their touch. The winds whispers, and pulls at his whiskers, and tickles his fur, but it can’t hug him the way his fathers can.

He will see his little prince safely home to Argent lands, and then he’ll go on four feet again, and run all the way back to Triskelion to tell his fathers that he’s found the boy whose heartbeats matches his own.

He feeds Etienne pheasant, and then finds a leaf large enough to bend into a cup. Etienne’s eyes grow wide and his mouth falls open when Gealai sings water into the leaf and passes it carefully over to him. Etienne’s hands shake when he takes the leaf, but he drinks without hesitation and leaves his lips shiny and wet. Gealai swallows when Etienne’s tongue darts out to swipe his lower lip.

“You’re _magic_ ,” Etienne says, breathless. “You made water out of air!”

Gealai shakes his head. “No. That’s the magic of the trees. I didn’t do that. I only asked if they would do it for me.”

Gealai’s magic is the wolf. He wishes now that he had a healer’s magic, because it’s clear to him that Etienne is hurting. Gealai rests a careful hand against Etienne’s boot, and he can feel the heat rising even through the leather. He knows better than to remove the boot though, because then the injury will swell and hurt him even more. He hopes the ankle is only twisted, not broken, but he needs to get Etienne home. A jealous, greedy part of his wolf’s heart wants to take him deeper into the woods. There are healers at the lake, and if there is a king of Laindéir then it is the _ceanurra_ , and Gealai wants to show him Etienne, as proud as a wolf cub back from its first successful hunt. But Gealai is a man as well, and an Argent prince is missing. He needs to get Etienne home before armies are raised on rumour and speculation.

Soldiers have already died for Etienne Argent today.

“Come,” he says, his heart aching. “Let’s get you home, _oir_.”

*****

It takes a full day to reach the border of his family’s lands, in a series of painful stumbling steps when Etienne insists on walking, or jolting ones when Galley piggybacks him. Etienne stops caring very early on about the indignity. His ankle throbs every time Galley takes a step and jostles him, but it’s still better than walking. It’s just… Galley is very naked, and Etienne hasn’t touched a naked man before. He’s very much wanted to, but now that he’s doing it—his arms and legs clutching Galley’s smoothly muscled skin—he’s caught between embarrassment and a warm thrill every time he has to readjust his grip and his fingers accidentally trace the rise of Galley’s clavicle, or find the dip between his pectorals. As the day progresses and Galley shows no signs of slowing, Etienne’s weariness defeats him at last, and he slumps and rests his chin on Galley’s shoulder. Galley smells of sweat and pine, and Etienne has to bite his lip to stop himself from darting his tongue out to taste his skin.

He makes a small moan of disappointment at his own restraint, and Galley’s shoulders shake.

“Are you laughing at me?” he dares to ask.

“Just a little, _oir_ ,” Galley says.

Maybe Etienne should be offended, at least a little bit, but he laughs too. “I… you know how handsome you are, yes? Because I noticed that and… that is, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, since you’re rescuing me, so, um, sorry?”

It’s more brain-fevered ramblings than an apology, and Etienne’s face burns. 

“You don’t make me uncomfortable,” Galley says softly. “You flatter me.”

How is it that Galley has more princely manners than Etienne? He swallows. “Is that all I do, Galley? Flatter you?”

“No.” Galley tilts his head. “I noticed you too, _oir_.”

Etienne slaps him gently on the chest. “Put me down for just a moment.”

Galley obeys, and Etienne straightens up. He’s careful not to put too much weight on his injured ankle. Galley turns to face him.

“I—” Etienne swallows. “I wanted to speak to you face to face, not face to, well, um.” He unfastens his cloak, wondering why the hell he didn’t think of this last night. Maybe because he was cold then, and today the sun has been beating on his back for hours and he’s as warm as toast. “Here. Put this around you, please.”

Galley takes his cloak, and kilts it around his waist, which makes it a lot easier to look him in the eye without spontaneously combusting.

“Thank you,” Etienne says. “If you hadn’t found me, I don’t know what would have happened. So thank you.” And then, with more bravery than he ever knew he possessed, he pushes himself up onto his toes and presses his lips against Galley’s.

Galley’s sharp intake of breath matches his own, and then his hands, warm and large, settle on Etienne’s hips and tug him closer. Etienne jolts as Galley’s tongue slides over the seam of his lips, and his mouth opens under the gentle persuasion. Their tongues touch, and it’s Etienne’s turn to gasp. He pulls back, his face burning, to find Galley’s hazel eyes as wide in wonder as his own must be.

And in that moment Etienne knows one thing as surely as he knows anything: he is in love with his strange wildling rescuer whose kisses are as magic as the way he calls water out of thin air, and his heart will shatter into a million pieces if he is not allowed to keep him.


	2. Chapter 2

Gealai has never stepped foot in Gévaudan before, or paw. The disused wing of the keep at Triskelion no longer stinks of smoke and ash, but Gealai knows what the Argents did to the Hales back then. He knows that there are some wounds that cannot be healed. He knows that between treaties and civilities that the appearance of friendship between their countries has been rebuilt, but the scars will always remain. And he knows that the scars still hurt.

He knows that the Argents, even if they wished it, would be fools to strike against Triskelion again, because the Hales have Laindéir with them now. The trees themselves would walk against Gévaudan if the _ceanurra_ asked them to. Still, he also knows it is never a wise thing to take a stick and stir a hornets’ nest, and so he has never crossed the border into Gévaudan before.

Gévaudan looks a lot like Triskelion. The trees are sparser here, their voices a low murmur only, and they give way at last to fields fenced in by stone walls or hedgerows. Contained seas of golden-tipped barley ripple in the wind. Cows low, and goats bleat. A smudge of smoke in the distance means a village, and Gealai trudges toward it with Etienne on his back.

The do not make the village; the rumbling thunder of horses’ hooves and the jangle of their trappings signals the approach of riders. Gealai’s heart beats faster as he sets Etienne down and the riders approach in a cloud of dust.

Their weapons are drawn.

“No!” Etienne yells, hobbling forward to stand in front of Gealai. “Put your weapons down! He saved me! Galley saved me!”

Gealai steps back from Etienne, and holds his hands up so the soldiers can see he is unarmed. He wonders what else they see: his nakedness covered only by Etienne’s cloak, his bare feet, his wild hair. A wildling, a Beaconite. They cannot see his claws and fangs, but they don’t need to see his wolf to fear him, not when they imagine him with a crown of antlers and a cloud of dark magic swirling around him like a storm.

Etienne sees their fear too.

“He saved me,” Etienne repeats, lifting his stubborn little prince chin. “Galley is my honoured guest in Gévaudan. My mother the queen will wish to reward him.”

Horses are brought forward. Soldiers help Etienne into the saddle, and Etienne grunts with pain when they do. No man helps Galley, but he swings up into the saddle easily. Laindéirans may not ride but Triskelions do and some of Gealai’s earliest memories are of sitting in the saddle in front of Dad, strong hands holding him in place. He holds the reins loosely, and lets the horse set its own pace with its fellows.

The wind chases dust up the road, and ruffles the mane of Galley’s horse. It would tug his whiskers if he was in his wolf form, but settles for trying to tie elf locks in his hair.

“Calm,” Gealai murmurs to it as it whispers its worry into the shell of his ear. “Be calm.”

He doesn’t know what awaits him in the castle of Gévaudan, but it’s where Etienne is going, and so he will follow. He will follow his little prince anywhere, he thinks, as long as Etienne allows it.

*****

Their reception at the castle is clamorous, and Etienne loses Galley somewhere in the crush of people rushing to see to his safety and to find out exactly what happened to him: healers, guardsmen, councillors, advisors, and his brother.

“Only _you_ ,” Alex says, helping to carry him up the stairs, “could get rescued by a naked wildling from Beacon!”

“Only me,” Etienne agrees, craning his head to see back down the stairs with no luck. “Alex, go with him, please? Make sure everyone knows he didn’t harm me!”

Alex sighs, and stops, half-dropping him. “Fine,” he says. “But I want the whole story later! Especially the parts involving the nakedness. Was it just his, or did you—”

“Alexandre.” Their grandfather looms up out of nowhere.

Alex jolts guiltily. “My lord,” he says, ducking his head.

Christopher Argent is still a strong man, and Etienne would never dare call him old. He takes over from Alex easily, linking hands with the healer on Etienne’s other side, making a seat for Etienne to lean into. They hoist him up again and continue up the stairs to Etienne’s bedroom.

His grandfather’s face is a stoic mask that Etienne knows will never slip an inch while there are other people around, but Etienne wishes that it would, just this once. Did his grandfather miss him? Was he afraid for him? Does he… does he think Etienne did anything wrong?

The man stands like a statue when the healers get Etienne onto his bed and cut his boot off. Etienne yells as his ankle immediately begins to swell. His foot is purple and black, and it throbs. The healers poke and prod and pronounce it a sprain rather than a break, and it might hurt like hell, but Etienne is greatly relieved. He’s not so relieved when the healers strip him and set him into a lukewarm bath, scrubbing at him like he’s a child, but he swallows his complaints and suffers their attention. Then, once he’s deemed clean enough for their satisfaction, he’s hoisted from the water, wrapped in towels, and deposited on his bed so they can wrap his ankle.

“I can dress myself,” he declares at last.

“Leave us,” Grand-père says, and the healers collect their kits and leave.

Grand-père crosses the floor to Etienne’s wardrobe, and pulls the doors open. He tosses Etienne some smallclothes.

Etienne winces as he pulls them on.

“Well then,” Grand-père says. “Was it only the wildling’s nakedness, Etienne?”

Etienne’s face burns, and he looks longingly at the tub of water and imagines drowning himself in it. “Of course, my lord!”

Princes are allowed a little more leeway than princesses, because princes aren’t left with babies in their bellies, but there is still an expectation—one drilled into Etienne since he was a child—that Etienne must be unsullied on his wedding night. Etienne is a third child; he will either marry some local merchant’s son or daughter to elevate their name to match their fortune, or, more likely, he will be given in marriage to a foreign noble of greater status than his own, in which case his future husband or wife will expect him to have remained chaste. 

Etienne’s stomach swoops. There is no room in any plans for him for a Laindéiran wildling. “I…”

His grandfather raises his eyebrows.

Etienne bites his lip. “Nothing happened, my lord, I swear it.”

Just that one life-changing, earth-shattering kiss that he and Galley shared.

Grand-père’s grey-blue gaze holds Etienne’s for a moment, and Etienne burns with guilt. He knows that Grand-père can read him like a book, but he only inclines his head in a nod. “Good. Tell me of the attack.”

“I…” Etienne swallows. “There were six of them. A hunting party, we thought. They wore no livery. We thought one of their horses had caught a stone, because they were stopped at the side of the road.”

“But it was an ambush.” Grand-père sits beside him on the bed, and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Did… did any of my men survive?”

Grand-père shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Etienne.”

Etienne’s eyes sting, and he nods. “Um, my men held them off so I could get away. I rode for the trees, hard. I didn’t know I crossed the border into Laindéir. My horse threw me at some point, and I twisted my ankle. It was dark by then, and Galley found me and saved me.”

“We thought you were dead,” Grand-père says, “or a hostage of the Monrovians.”

“Monrovians?”

“Your men killed three of theirs,” Grand-père tells him. “One of them carried orders in a known Monrovian code.”

“But…” Etienne creases his brow. “But I’m only a third child.”

Grand-père raises his eyebrows. “And do you think your mother loves you any less for that?”

“N-no! But I’m not as important as Theodora! She’ll be queen one day. And even Alex is more important than—”

“Etienne.” Grand-père’s tone of voice brooks no argument. He squeezes Etienne’s shoulder. “You mother would move mountains for you. And so would I.”

Etienne nods, his eyes stinging again. “If… if you would both move mountains…”

He can’t finish the thought.

_If you would both move mountains for me, then would you allow me to love a wildling?_

Because Etienne is a prince. He knows it’s not that simple. He has lived a life of privilege, freer than most men, but in this he has no say. Neither did his parents, or his grandparents, and neither will Thea and Alex. Duty comes first, always.

Duty above all else.

“Now let me help you dress,” Grand-père says, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “It’s only because your mother thinks you’re still in the bath that she hadn’t broken this door down, I think. If we make her wait any longer, I can’t guarantee the safety of the thing.”

Etienne forces a smile.

*****

How strange it is to stand in the heart of the castle of Gévaudan, in front of an unfamiliar throne and a queen who is not his own.

Gealai bows, his borrowed clothes itching against his skin. Alexandre, a darker version of Etienne but no less full of sunlight all the same, had chosen clothes for him to wear, and Gealai had hidden a smile when Alexandre had praised him sincerely for his ability to tie the laces on his jerkin. Perhaps he thought that all Beaconites went around naked as the trees in winter. If so, Gealai reflects, it is probably not the worst thing they think of them.

Queen Allison rises from her throne. Her dark hair falls in waves down her back, silver-grey threads shining in it. She is beautiful. The lines around her eyes, Gealai thinks, are more from smiling than scowling, although her expression is nothing but regal and stoic at this moment. It does not last. She steps down from the dais, a smile breaking her impassive mask.

“Galley, is it?” she asks. She reaches out a hand to him—the guards step closer—and clasps his. A single glance makes the guards step back again.

“Gealai,” he says. “Your majesty.”

“Gealai.” Her pronunciation is better than her son’s. She squeezes his hand before releasing it. “I am indebted to you.”

Gealai shakes his head. “No, your majesty.”

If there is debt here, it is all Gealai’s. He is indebted to Etienne and to Etienne alone, because his wolf has found its home, its matching heart, and for that Gealai would give him anything it is within his power to give. His little prince, his _oir_ , his heartbeat.

He opens his mouth to tell the queen the words his heart is shouting, but a breath of wind steals inside and ruffles his hair and cautions him to silence. He thinks of the chessboard in Uncle Peter’s sitting room, half the wooden pieces chewed by Gealai when he was a pup.

“That’s one way to win the game, I suppose, Faolán,” Uncle Peter told him once, prying a bishop from between his jaws and wiping the drool off it, “but most people won’t invite you to play at all if they know you’ll only eat the pieces.”

Chess is not a game for wolves. It may be a game for princes, but even Gealai knows that the strongest piece on the board is the queen.

Queen Allison smiles again. “But I am, Gealai, as both a queen and a mother. Come, please, and join us at our table.”

Gealai nods, and remains several paces behind the queen as she and her entourage sweep from the room. The guards stay close.

Gealai is expecting a meal in a large hall, full of courtiers, but the queen sheds her followers like the trees shed their leaves in autumn, and they spiral and twist away from her, bobbing and bowing as they go. By the time they reach the dining room, only two of the guards remain.

A servant opens the door, and Gealai follows the queen inside.

He spies a familiar face at the table already: Etienne.

Etienne’s face splits with a grin, and he rises to his feet. The sudden look of pain on his face tells Gealai he’d managed to forget he was hurt until he put weight on his foot. He sinks back down into his seat, still smiling, though this time ruefully. “Ouch! Galley! You’re wearing _clothes_!”

The young woman sitting across from him winces. “Etienne!”

His _oir_ is bright pink under his golden hair now. “Sorry. I mean, um. Sorry. Here.” He pats the back of the chair beside his. “I saved you a seat.”

Gealai looks to the queen first, and she nods at him. Gealai sits, and glances around at the other occupants of the table.

The young woman must be Theodora, the crown princess. She will be queen after her mother. Alexandre is sitting beside her. The queen takes a seat at one end of the table. At the other end sits an older man: he has grey hair and a beard, but his eyes are as sharp as any youth’s. Christopher Argent, because who else can it be? He was king before his daughter came of age. He is the son of the man who orchestrated the murder of half the Hales, and the brother of the woman who carried out the plan. Gealai might be a wolf, but his heart beats a little faster in fear as he wonders if this man is his enemy.

Servants bring dishes of food.

“You must be hungry,” Alexandre says. “After your time stuck in the woods.”

“Galley cooked pheasant,” Etienne says, and he shines with delight and turns his smile on Gealai.

 _I would have sung a stag to death for you,_ Gealai wants to tell him, _and begged the brambles for blackberries to stain your lips._ But even his wolf’s heart knows words such as those go best unsaid, at least for the now. Gealai has always walked the path between Triskelion and Laindéir, between prince and wolf. He has always found his own way, his own balance, and he will do it with Etienne too. When both prince and wolf might be equally unwelcome in this place, then for now Gealai will remain what they think he is: a wildling, born of the trees and the dirt and the stones, with a name that means nothing to them at all. And then, when he leaves here, his fathers will know what to do. They always do.

And so he eats, and ducks his head, and listens to Etienne tell the story of his rescue. He sees himself reflected in Etienne’s words, larger than he is in real life, brighter too. Gaelei means moonlight, but Etienne has made him the sun.

“We do not know much of your people,” Christopher Argent says. “Only rumour and perhaps myth.”

Gealai lifts his head and holds the man’s gaze. “My people are like the pebbles in the lake, my lord. Each one is unique.”

“Gealai made water out of air!” Etienne exclaims. “He is magic!”

Theodora drops her fork, and it clatters against the table.

Gealai tastes the sudden spark of fear in the air. He’s tasted it many times before in his life. People fear what they do not understand, and they do not understand Laindéirans. Even in Triskelion there are those who give Gealai and Papa a wide berth still, as though their hearts are still as unknown as their magics. Gealai’s magic is nothing like Papa’s though. Gealai’s magic is the wolf. Papa’s is… well, Papa’s is _everything_. Papa is the Nemeton. He holds the magic of the trees themselves in his palm, and he has fed them whole armies. He has no doubt the Argents heard of that. They fear Gealai because he is from Laindéir, the same as Stiles, and that is enough. If they knew he was Stiles’s son, would they let him near their little prince ever again? Etienne has made him bright as the sun, but that only casts the shadows into deeper relief. 

“No,” he says softly. “That was not my magic. That was the magic of the trees.”

He worries it doesn’t do enough to calm their fears.

Etienne throws him a bright, brilliant smile. His little prince is not afraid of him, and Gealai takes what small comfort he can from that.

There is too much here to puzzle out. Gealai can tell from a sniff of the air when a storm is building, or where a rabbit is hiding, or how many men passed through the woods the night before, but this is a chess board, and Gealai cannot play chess. The wolf’s heart is simple. It is loyal and it is good. Machinations are not a wolf’s game, and the longer Gealai sits at this table the more like the wolf he feels.

He misses his fathers. He misses the _ceanurra_. And he misses Uncle Peter, who always knows a hundred different complicated strings to pull to make something happen. Love is simple, love is _home_ , but Etienne is home as well, and the wolf already keeps part of his heart in Triskelion and part in Laindéir. Is there enough left over for his little prince to hold here in Gévaudan? Gealai wants to give him the whole of his heart, but he doesn’t know how that is possible.

And so he sits and he eats and he listens, a wildling from the woods whose unknown powers frighten them, but whose fathers’ names, if they knew them, might condemn him even more.


	3. Chapter 3

In all his fantasies—his trip home might not have taken long, but he’d still had plenty of time to fashion a thousand of them from the air—Etienne had imagined Galley being awed by Gévaudan, and looking at Etienne wide-eyed as though he had magic too. The magic of clothes and indoor fires and mattresses and bedding and comforts. Except Galley doesn’t look surprised at all by the luxuries of the castle, and Etienne feels a little disappointed, and a little foolish too. He thinks that Galley might like the gardens more, because the gardens are beautiful, except Etienne isn’t in any condition to walk around and show them to him. 

They spend the rest of the day indoors instead, in one of the sitting rooms. It’s not the privacy that Etienne had hoped for; there’s a pair of guards watching them at all times, and Etienne doesn’t know if that’s because Galley is a wild Beaconite with unknown magical powers, or if Grand-père read Etienne like a book and knows exactly how eager he is to lose his chastity like a baby tooth. Both are probably true. 

Etienne wishes he had the courage to reach out and clasp Galley’s hand, but he’s aware that the guards will report back to his mother and his grandfather. 

“Tell me about Laindéir,” he says instead. 

Galley glances at the guards before he answers. “It is beautiful there,” he says at last. “The woods are full of stories if you know how to listen for them. The trees are old and wise and have lived forever, but even the mayflies have things to tell.” 

“Is everyone there magic?” 

Galley’s brow creases, and he bits his bottom lip. Etienne wants to sooth the indentation away with his fingers, or his tongue. Then Galley’s mouth quirks in a smile. “The land itself is magic, and we belong to it. We are born of the land and the trees and the wind and the rain, and their magic runs in our veins too. The Old Ones made it so.” 

“The fae,” Etienne whispers, his heart beating faster. 

Galley nods. 

“I’m not afraid of you,” Etienne says, lifting his chin. “I’m not afraid of Laindéir.”

He thinks that one of those things is a lot more true than the other. And he thinks that Galley knows it as well, because he smiles softly and says, “As you say, _oir_.” 

Etienne reaches out for his hand, shooting a glare at the watching guards, and curls their fingers together. It’s more than he is allowed, but nothing near what his aching heart needs. 

***** 

Darkness falls on Gévaudan castle, and the moon rises. Gealai watches it from the room he has been given, through the frame of a narrow, arched window crossed with lines of lead that keep the glass panes in place. The moon is fractured, cut into pieces by the window, and Gealai unlatches the window and pushes it open so that he can see her face.

He will leave for Triskelion in the morning, he promises the whispering wind. He will wait until he is at the border, and then he will shift and run for home. The wind worries in the shell of his ear that it’s a lie, that Gealai won’t be able to leave his little prince behind, and Gealai doesn’t know if the wind is right or not. The wolf inside him howls at the loss of his _oir_ already, so how will Gealai be able to step away from this place? The wolf is a simple creature and a hunter. It sniffs out its prey and stalks it. It makes no sense to the wolf to take such a circuitous route to his little prince—to Triskelion or to Laindéir , to his fathers and to Uncle Peter and to his grandfather the _ceanurra_ , and all their interwoven, tricky threads of diplomacy—when Etienne is already _here_ , in reach. It makes his chest ache.

It’s hard to stop the wolf from doing something reckless. And impossible, Gealai realises when he hears the furtive knocking on his door in the middle of the night, to stop his stubborn little prince from doing the same. Etienne is wide-eyed when Gealai opens the door to him. He slips into the room like a moonbeam, silent and bright. He closes the door behind him, and steps forward. 

There are no words exchanged between them, only a kiss that is both desperate and refreshing, both courageous and afraid. When Etienne leans back, biting his curving bottom lip, Gealai takes the chance to card his fingers through his messy golden hair and tease the strands apart. 

“Galley.” Etienne breathes the name like a prayer. His eyes shine with tears. “Maybe we should have stayed in the woods, Galley.” 

Joy and heartbreak stab him the same way. Joy, because his little prince feels it too, and heartbreak because it hurts him. He rubs his thumb along Etienne’s cheekbone. “Would you give away your crown of silver for one of flowers, my _oir_?” 

Etienne blinks, a shimmering tear caught in his lashes. “If they let me, I would, for you.” He attempts a smile. It wavers. “Have you caught me in your thrall, wildling?” 

“I think I’m caught in yours, little prince.” 

Etienne’s wavering smile grows for a moment, and then crumples like a dry leaf into nothing. “For all the good it does us both!” 

“Hush.” Gealai presses his finger to Etienne’s lips, and tries not to be too distracted when Etienne’s tongue darts out to taste. “Listen, can you keep a secret?” 

Etienne nods eagerly. 

Gealai clasps his hands. “There’s something I need to tell you, and I hope that it will help us, and not condemn us. I—” 

And at that moment the door crashes open, and Christopher Argent is standing there, with two very burly guards beside him. And none of them look happy to see their golden prince in the embrace of a Laindéiran wildling. 

*****

Etienne has never thought of Grand-père as a cold man, but there is no warmth at all in his gaze when he regards Galley. Christopher Argent may not be a king anymore, but he is nothing but regal in this moment. Regal and terrifying, because Etienne can’t see even a hint of the man he loves, whose hard-won smiles made Etienne crow with delight when he was small and whose robes of state, back when he still wore the crown, always hid a few honeycakes and sweetmeats for his grandchildren. The rest of the kingdom might have thought the man was cold, but Etienne and Alex and Thea always knew differently. And now Etienne is afraid it isn’t true. 

“Grand-père,” he says, and then falters. “My lord, please.” 

Grand-père’s brows draw together, and Etienne knows he’s made a mistake. He just doesn’t know which mistake it was: calling him _Grand-père_ or calling him _my lord_? Which one stings him? “Etienne, go to your room.” 

“No!” Etienne steps in front of Galley, his ankle throbbing. “This is my fault, my lord.” That slight flinch again, and Etienne feels a rush of relief—it’s the formality Grand-père hates, and the way Etienne has resorted to it instead of appealing to the man as his grandfather, who loves him, and not the lord who outranks him. “Please, Grand-père, this is my fault!” 

“I do not doubt it, Etienne.” There’s a hint of wryness under the rebuke. “But I think it’s time your friend goes back to his people, don’t you?” 

“I…” No. Etienne wants Galley to stay. He knows it’s impossible, but he can’t bring himself to agree with his grandfather. His eyes burn, and his chest aches as though he’s being held underwater and he can’t pull any air into his lungs. “But… but I’m only a third child.” 

If there’s more sympathy in Grand-père’s expression now, there’s more steel too, and Etienne knows that nothing will sway him. Of course nothing will. Etienne is a prince of Gévaudan. He doesn’t get to make these choices for himself, but knowing that isn’t enough to stop the childish swell of hope inside him that if only he can make Grand-père understand what Galley means to him—another impossibility, of course, since they’re almost strangers—that Grand-père will be moved enough to allow him this. If there is magic enough in the world that Galley can pull water from air, then surely it can change the minds of men? 

“Please,” he says, reaching back blindly for Galley’s hand. He can’t even articulate the appeal properly, because he knows that the moment he does, the moment it will be denied. “Please.” 

“Etienne.” Grand-père sighs. “Say goodbye to your friend now.” 

Sudden desperation claws at Etienne’s chest, its talons digging into his heart. He turns to Galley, squeezing his hand, and lifts his free hand to press his palm against Galley’s cheek. 

“There will be…” Galley’s gaze darts to Grand-père and then back to Etienne again. “I will make it right, _oir_. Do you believe me?” 

“You made water out of air,” Etienne says, his heart aching. “I believe you.” 

“That was the magic of the trees.” Galley’s smile is tinged with regret. “My magic doesn’t do that.” His brows draw together. “But I will make it right. I will come back for you and—” 

Grand-père makes a growling sound. 

“Wait for me,” Galley says. “Tell me you’ll wait for me.” 

Etienne feels hot tears slide down his cheeks. “I will,” he says, his voice cracking. “I will, for as long as they’ll let me.” 

“You’ve known him a _day_ , Etienne!” Grand _-_ père snaps. 

Etienne squeezes Galley’s hands hard. “It’s enough though,” he says, lifting his chin. “It’s enough to know.” 

Still, he cries when Galley gently tugs their hands apart. 

***** 

Christopher Argent and a troop of soldiers escort Gealai to the border with Laindéir. Gealai knows of Argent treachery, and he half expects a sword in the guts to be his true farewell from Gévaudan, but Christopher Argent is neither his father nor his sister—may they rot forevermore—and the punishment for kissing his little prince is not a death sentence. 

“I want to thank you for everything that you did for Etienne,” Christopher Argent says, staring down at him from atop his warhorse. 

Gealai holds his gaze. 

The man’s mouth turns down a little. “But I think it’s best if you stay in the woods and forget whatever promises you’ve made, don’t you?” 

Gealai nods, but even if he could, he can’t forget the promises he’s made to his own heart. 

He crosses the border into Laindéir and into the welcoming embrace of the ancient trees. He closes his eyes and crouches in the shadows and the cool loam, and the wind caresses him and whispers soothing words in his ear. Then, when enough time has passed, Gealai climbs to his feet again. 

He takes off his boots, and then unlaces his borrowed jerkin and folds it into a neat square. The shirt and leggings and smallclothes follow it. He walks back to the border, the morning’s new sunlight warm on his naked skin, and sets the clothes where maybe they will be found. 

And then he slinks back into the trees, and shifts into his wolf form, and runs for home with his heart in his mouth and a howl in his throat. 

The wind keeps pace with him all the way there. 

*****

Etienne’s rescue, and his rescuer, are the talk of Gévaudan castle for a week or two, and then there is some scandal or another and Etienne sinks, once more, below the notice of the gossiping courtiers. His family’s notice is a little harder to dodge, but his healing ankle gives him some excuse not to be as social as usual. He spends his days reading, or at least pretending to. He finds himself thinking of Gealai all the time, and staring toward the smudge of trees on the horizon that mark the border with Laindéir, and imagining Gealai coming to fetch him, even now. 

It is an impossible fantasy that floats away like smoke whenever Etienne tries to pin it down, because it will not work. Even if Etienne wanted, his mother and his grandfather would not let him leave everything behind for a naked wildling with dark Beaconite magic. 

Etienne cups his empty hands sometimes, and stares at them, and asks the trees to give him water. But he doesn’t know the right words, or perhaps magic only works for the strange, unearthly people who live in the dark woods, because nothing ever happens. 

On his third week of largely self-imposed convalescence, Thea and Alex barge into his rooms bearing sweetmeats, and refuse to leave again. 

“If it were up me,” Thea declares, “I’d let you marry a wildling!” 

“It’s not up to you though,” Etienne says. 

“No,” she agrees. “And, Etty, you know that even when I’m queen I won’t be able to do everything I want.” 

He nods, his throat aching. 

Thea is twenty-one, and she has been betrothed to a baron’s fourth son since she was fifteen. He visits sometimes. He’s quiet and nervous, and his brothers tease him for marrying under a woman’s heel, but Thea has decided that she likes him, and that once he’s away from his brothers he will be much happier. Alex has been betrothed since he was nine to a girl he has never met; one of Queen Satomi’s daughters. It is a good match politically. Personally, Alex has no idea. He has another year until he is sent to live in Satomi’s court, and Etienne knows he puts on a braver face than he feels. 

Etienne has been almost-betrothed once, and betrothed once. The first time was an attempt to marry him into the Hales of Triskelion, but the betrothal was never agreed on. The second, he was betrothed to a Monrovian duke’s daughter, but relations between their kingdoms soured and the betrothal was broken off. Sometimes other names are floated in his hearing—a widowed queen who already has children; a count from Shiprock who has a wife already but, in accordance with the laws of his country, also seeks a husband; the daughter of a wealthy burgher who covets a title for her and her future children—but Etienne is only seventeen. In a year or two at most the question will be decided for him. And Etienne has never really pushed back against that. But then he’s never fallen in love with anyone before. 

“Do you think it’s possible to fall in love in just a day?” he blurts out suddenly. 

Thea and Alex exchange a glance.

“I don’t know,” Thea says at last. She wrinkles her nose. “I hope not.” 

Alex sees Etienne’s indignation, and reaches out to poke him in the ribs. “Because if it is, Etienne, then both Thea and I have been cheated out of the chance to find out, haven’t we?” 

Etienne nods, feeling even more miserable. “Sorry.” 

“I like Henri a lot,” Thea says. “I do. But I don’t know if I _love_ him, or even if I should. I hardly know him.”

Alex flashes her a wry smile. “And all I know about Saeko is that she has very nice handwriting.” 

“I’m sorry,” Etienne says again, and wipes furiously at his sudden tears.

All three of them startle when Etienne’s door suddenly crashes open and Grand-père strides inside. “Etienne! Get dressed, quickly. There’s a Triskelion delegation on their way, and they want to meet with you.” 

“With _me_?” Etienne brushes his sweetmeat crumbs off his shirt, as though that will make any difference. He’s a mess. 

“Your Beaconite _wildling_ ,” Grand-père says, and then snorts and shakes his head. “They’re almost at the gates, so get dressed, and drag a brush through that tangle you call your hair, and get down to the great hall as quickly as you can.” 

“But why would—” 

“Etienne,” Grand-père says, pinching the bridge of his nose in the way he always does when Etienne drives him up the wall. “Etienne, your wildling Galley is also Faolán Hale. _Prince_ Faolán Hale. So get out of bed and make yourself presentable, unless you’d rather be mistaken as the penniless peasant this time.” 

Thea shrieks, clapping her hands over her mouth. Alex’s jaw drops. 

Etienne blinks at Grand-père stupidly. “What?”

“Etienne!” Alex rips his blankets away. “Get the hell out of bed!” 

Etienne’s head is still spinning minutes later as Alex and Thea hustle him downstairs, straightening his clothes and trying to tame his hair. They push him into the great hall, and in that moment everything stops. 

Even Etienne’s heartbeat. 

He stares. 

There are people everywhere. His mother is at the other end of the hall, descending from her dais with her hands outstretched in welcome toward two men. One wears the Triskelion crest on his surcoat. The other wears a crown of antlers. And behind them stands… 

Etienne gasps, and his heart starts beating again. 

Galley turns. He wears a surcoat, with the Hale crest on one side and a wolf’s head on the other. He also wears a crown of holly on his head, and his eyes are wide with hope. 

“Galley!” Etienne yells, and hobbles as fast as he can down the hall toward him. 

Galley meets him halfway, and lifts him up into his arms and swings him. 

“You’re a _prince_?” Etienne asks, unsure if he’s even laughing or crying. He smacks a hand against Galley’s chest. “You didn’t say!” 

“He’s like his father,” the man with the antler crown says, his eyes sparkling. “Terrible with his words.” 

“A Hale as well as a Laindéiran,” Galley says. “And I didn’t know if that would bring more trouble.” 

“I don’t care about that,” Etienne says. “You’re a _prince_.” 

He waits until Galley sets him down, and then grips him tightly by the surcoat and pulls him in for a kiss. 

The man with the antlers laughs, and it sounds like the tinkle of a shallow stream dancing over a bed of pebbles. “Look, Der! They found their own path!” 

“Well,” he hears his mother say wryly over the scandalous buzz of the courtiers, “it seems the betrothal is back on after all.” 

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

The cloak of night falls slowly on Laindéir, and Etienne sits on his and Galley’s _flett_ , gazing out into the darkening trees. The _flett_ bobs a little as someone steps on it from a neighbouring platform, and Etienne turns to see who is joining him.

It’s Stiles, wearing a grin and holding a handful of berries. He sits down next to Etienne, and slips his feet into the water. He holds the berries out to Etienne in question, and Etienne shakes his head.

“It’s a big hunt,” Stiles says at last. “It will take a while.” His grin broadens. “For you, he will want the biggest stag in the forest.”

Etienne has been in Laindéir for three days now, after their marriage in Triskelion. Etienne was nervous about coming here, but Stiles and Derek, Galley’s fathers, came with them too. Etienne thinks he should be the most scared of Stiles, whose reputation is frankly terrifying, but his smile is even brighter than Galley’s. And he laughs whenever Etienne calls him _my lord_ , as though it’s the funniest joke in the world.

Stiles finishes his berries and leans forward to wash his hands in the lake. He wipes his palms on his leggings, and then climbs to his feet and holds a damp hand down to Etienne. “Come, we’re going to visit my father.”

The _ceanurra_. If Laindéir has a king, it’s the _ceanurra_. Except Laindéir doesn’t have a king, exactly, and the _ceanurra_ looks more like a woodcutter or a hunter than a king. It turns out that everything in Laindéir is exactly as strange as Etienne thought it would be, but not in the ways he thought.

Etienne lets Stiles pull him to his feet, and then follows him to the _ceanurra_ ’s _flett_. He’s not as quick on his feet navigating the _fletts_ and bridges that link them as Stiles is. He’s a good forty or fifty feet behind by the time Stiles reaches the _ceanurra’_ s _flett_. A gaggle of little children are using the _flett_ as a diving platform. As Etienne steps onto it, he sees a little girl barely old enough to toddle flinging herself gleefully into the water. She submerges for a second, her limbs flailing, and then a pair of pale arms lifts her from the water and nudges her back onto the _flett_. Galley calls them the _merrow_ ; the dwellers in the lake. From the glimpses Etienne has caught, he thinks they have tails like fish.

“Etienne,” the _ceanurra_ says, holding out a hand to steady him. “How do you fare?”

“I am well, my l—” Etienne flushes. “John.”

“You’re hardly a week married, and the Gift of the Trees has left you for a whole day.” John gives him a knowing look, and then smiles. “He’ll be back soon though. The oaks in the southern hollow tell me he has just passed them on his way home.”

“And the wind is harrying him,” Stiles says with a laugh.

“Because you tell it to,” John says, rolling his eyes.

“Because it likes to,” Stiles counters, but he’s still laughing.

Etienne sits down on one of the many cushions on John’s _flett_ , and glances toward the shore of the lake again. He doesn’t see Galley yet, but can’t stop his gaze being drawn shoreward. It’s only following the pull of his heart.

His week-long marriage has come after six months of betrothal. Six months made it a short betrothal, but it still felt excruciatingly long for Etienne. He’d been bursting at the seams to pack and move to Triskelion, right up until the day of the move itself, when he’d inexplicably burst into tears instead. Grand-père had hauled him up by the collar of his shirt, and walked him smartly down to the stables, where he’d explained to Etienne exactly how fast his best horse was, and how quickly he would be at Etienne’s side if he sent for him.

“You’ve slept almost every night in that same bed since childhood,” he’d said. “And you will be homesick at first, Etienne, but that boy worships the ground you walk on. I know that you’ll be happy. And if you’re not…” He’d pulled Etienne into a hug. “If you’re not, or if he hurts you, I’ll kill him myself and make it look like an accident.”

Etienne supposes that such a threat shouldn’t have made him feel so warm all over, especially given the rumours surrounding his father’s death, but it was nice to know that he had his grandfather on his side.

His journey to Triskelion had been without incident, and then he and Galley had married in the chapel at the Triskelion keep the morning after he arrived, which had meant a whole day of festivities before they were given a moment to be alone. And what a moment it had been! Neither of them had been very sure of what they were doing, but they had kissed a lot and seemed to muddle through it just fine. And then the next morning Galley had insisted on learning every inch of Etienne’s skin with his mouth, and any lingering shame Etienne had felt at being naked and aroused with another person had been well and truly exorcised under Galley’s ardent attention.

Etienne is delighted to be madly in love with his wildling husband, and ecstatic to discover that their marital relations are so wonderfully rewarding. Except now here they are in Laindéir and John is right: Galley has left him alone for a whole day! And Etienne knows that Galley hunting for him is an important tradition, but he would have much preferred to spend the day curled up together lazily on their _flett,_ sneaking away to the shore and the shelter of the trees whenever they wanted to make love, because Etienne isn’t anywhere near as bold enough to do it where anyone might see them, except Galley has gone _hunting_.

“He’ll be back soon, I’m sure,” Derek Hale says, sitting down beside Etienne.

Etienne jolts; he didn’t even hear the man approaching. He nods. “John says so, yes, my lord.”

Derek doesn’t laugh the way Stiles does when Etienne addresses him respectfully. He stretches. “You know, Stiles and I were married for two years before he finally remembered he was supposed to dedicate a hunt to me.”

“I got you the biggest stag, _deogràdh_ _,”_ Stiles calls. He’s over with the kids, stripping out of his clothes to swim.

Etienne’s face burns.

“It was fine,” Derek says and shrugs, but Etienne can see his mouth twitching. “It wasn’t that big, though.”

“Pfft. I got you a _baby_ ,” Stiles says. He doesn’t wait for Derek’s response. He leaps into the water, followed by the giggling children.

Derek smiles, his eyes crinkling. “Yeah,” he says softly, as though he’s talking to the forest itself. “You got me a baby.”

Etienne’s breath catches in his throat. Will he and Galley still be this in love after twenty years? He knows in his heart they will. In twenty years, or forty, or, gods willing, in sixty. He wonders at the magic of the trees, and turns his head to look at the mysterious little island in the middle of the lake. The moonlight bathes it in silver. He wonders if one day he and Galley will be able to receive a gift from the trees. He doesn’t know how any of that works, and he doesn’t know how to ask.

Derek catches his look. _“_ Laindéir,” he says, and then shakes his head and smile. “This place has a way of giving you exactly what you need.”

“It already has,” Etienne says.

Derek smiles, and puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes.

Etienne smiles back at him, and settles in to wait for his husband.

Galley is back within an hour of moonrise. His silhouette as he stands on the shore, the moonlight behind him, is otherworldly. He’s hunchbacked, and antlers protrude like spikes from his side. The stag he sang to death is huge, and Etienne can hardly believe he can lift it.

A bonfire is built on the shore of the lake; it takes hours for the stag to cook, but those hours are passed in song and story. When it is at last time to eat, John thanks the Old Ones for their gift of the stag, and thanks the stag for its sacrifice. Then Galley presents Etienne with the first piece of venison, and everyone cheers when he eats it.

And then there is music and dancing, and Etienne tires himself out so much that he falls asleep there on the lakeshore, and has no memory at all of Galley carrying him back to their _flett_ to sleep.

*****

The day before they are due to leave Laindéir, Gealai takes Etienne to the island to thank the Old Ones for helping him find the boy whose heartbeat matches his own. Etienne is wide-eyed, but he is not afraid. He listens eagerly to all the things that Gealai tells him, and touches the trees and the stone altar with reverence.

“Is this where your magic comes from?” he asks, his gold hair shining in the sunlight of the altar clearing.

“Yes,” Gealai says. “This is where the Old Ones taught us how to sing.”

“And how to make water from the air,” Etienne says with a bright smile. He laughs when Gaelai opens his mouth to correct him. “I know! I know! That’s the trees’ magic, not yours.”

Gealai likes that Etienne teases him about it. Then he listens to the whisper of the wind, and tilts his head. “Would you like to see my magic, _oir_?”

Etienne inhales sharply. “Yes, Galley! Please! Show me!”

And so Gaelai shifts.

*****

There is a wolf standing in the place of his husband, but Etienne doesn’t even feel a twinge of fear. He’s too full of wonder for that. The wolf is _massive_. It could bring down a warhorse and hardly break a sweat. Etienne reaches out and touches his fingers to its muzzle.

Gold eyes regard him silently.

“Oh,” Etienne breathes. He runs his fingertips over the wolf’s muzzle, over the field of whiskers, then up to its ears. He sinks his fingers deeply into its ruff, and laughs when the wolf’s eyes sink half-closed in pleasure. He puts his arms around the wolf’s neck, and buries his face in that thick ruff.

“Galley!” he exclaims when he leans back again. “You’re _beautiful_!”

And suddenly the air itself seems to shimmer, and Etienne is holding his naked husband in his arms.

“I love you, my little prince,” Galley says. “My _oir_.”

“I love you too,” Etienne says. “Galley the wildling, Faolán Hale, and the Gift of the Trees.”

“I have more names than that,” Galley says, laughing.

“More than me?” Etienne huffs, and juts out his chin.

“A hundred more than you,” Galley says.

Etienne laughs and kisses him. “Greedy.”

Above them, the wind dances through the trees.


End file.
